Super Glossary

Sumptuary Laws

Entertainment / Literature / Sumptuary Laws: Laws that regulate the sort of clothing an individual may wear. Classical Rome restricted certain types of garb to the senatorial classes and equestrian classes, for instance. In Classical China, only the Emperor was allowed to wear the emblem of a five-fingered dragon on his garb, or have it depicted on personal possessions. In medieval Europe and Britain through the late Renaissance, the nobility enacted a series of sumptuary laws to maintain distinctions between themselves and the rising bourgeois class. The bourgeoisie were often quite wealthy, especially after the economic upheaval of the Black Death (1348) caused labor shortages that forced landowners to pay skilled laborers extra money. The newly wealthy could afford to mimic the styles and fashions of the nobility, and they did. This trend caused the nobility to enact laws stating that non-noblity could no longer wear, for instance, silver jewelry, or certain styles of footwear. We can see the guildsmen in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales attempting to 'push the boundaries' of the sumptuary laws. For instance, the five guildsmen all carry silver knives with them. (The law prohibits silver jewelry, but says nothing about fine silver cutlery, for instance.) Many of the sumptuary laws were anti-Semitic in origin. For instance, in Britain, France, and Germany, sumptuary laws required that all Jews wear on their clothing a yellow circle to distinguish the wearers from their Christian neighbors. Thus, the authorities could enforce more easily those laws that stated Jews could not work at certain occupations, or hold land, or whatnot. (That particular sumptuary law was revived during Hitler's regime of World War II, except Hitler required a yellow star of David instead of a yellow circle.)
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